Asheville’s new WNC Whiskey Festival spotlights local distilleries

Asheville’s next drink festival is betting on whiskey, not beer, and it is doing so with a distinctly local angle. The inaugural WNC Whiskey Festival is set for May 30 at the Mission Health/A-B Tech Conference Center, 340 Victoria Rd., where 30 local-to-NC distilleries will pour from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are advance-only, with general admission priced at $99, VIP tickets at $156 and designated-driver tickets at $13. Organizers have capped attendance at 500 people, including 150 VIP passes.

Organizer Carey Harnash said he wanted to build a festival around distilleries in Western North Carolina’s own backyard rather than importing the concept from somewhere else. “It’s to celebrate Western North Carolina and North Carolina, highlighting local and craft distilleries,” he said. The event is also tied to the WNC Harvest & Heritage Foundation, where Harnash serves on the board, and its proceeds are meant to support the foundation’s work with local nonprofits focused on food insecurity and related needs.

Harnash is leaning on experience from the Asheville Food Truck Showdown, the event he helped organize before the pandemic. He said that gathering once brought “over 20 trucks” into part of the WNC Agricultural Center, and Mountain Xpress reports the 2021 showdown was featured on Food Network’s Dinner Impossible. That background gives the whiskey festival a little more credibility than a one-off tasting, even as its scale remains intentionally tight and its pitch centers on curated tastings, live music and a limited guest list.

The festival also arrives in a region where Asheville’s distilling scene is no longer an afterthought. North Carolina’s ABC Commission regulates alcoholic beverages statewide, the state distillery trail includes Asheville Distilling Company and Chemist Spirits, and 2026 directories list Asheville with either five or 11 distilleries. Taken together, those numbers suggest the WNC Whiskey Festival is less a mass-market convention than a niche regional showcase, but one with enough local footing to become a meaningful draw for Buncombe County’s food-and-drink economy.